Update on Liberia

Hello friends and family,

I wanted to give everyone an update about what is going in with DELTA Force, Fresh Start Fellowship, and West African Childrens Support Network (WACSN) in Monrovia, Liberia.

As many of you know a group of us went to Monrovia, Liberia, Africa in the beginning of August of this year. While we were there we did a variety of things including a VBS, teen conference, and training. Personally I had the privilege to preach the Gospel to the teenagers and also helped to build a computer network and trained some of the guys there how to administer it, I also made some great friends in the process (click here for some pictures). Most importantly however, we put on a pastors conference where we had over 150 pastors from all over Monrovia attend. Kris and Bryan spent a great deal of time with the pastors teaching them and encouraging them to get out and to love, minister to, and serve their flock, and also to work together to rebuild their communities, putting the Cross of Christ ahead of any other differences they may have in order to repair their broken land.

Well since we've returned home much has happened. Our group of 150 pastors has organized themselves into a network of 1000 pastors all hungry to go OUT and into their communities and to reach them in Love for Christ. We are now planning to hold a conference at the soccer stadium in Monrovia in December, it seats 45,000 people (which means 65,000 will attend), and it may be several days of conference, so we're talking over 100,000 people reached. This in combination with a continuation of our effort to train and encourage the pastors will lead to a great move of God. Our intent is not to go and simply provide a "mountain top" experience at the soccer stadium, but to use it as a catalyst to get people connected to the pastors and churches in their communities. However it is coming upon us quickly and we have to move fast.

We are literally scrambling right now to get a high speed Internet connection (Via satellite) installed at the WACSN compound in Liberia, so we can have much better communication capabilities with the pastors in Monrovia, and so also we can provide to them the resources on the Internet that we all take for granted each day (they can't just go to the local bookstore or library and pick up John Piper's latest book, many of them could barely if even afford a Bible). We hope to have this completed within the next month. This connection will greatly help our ability to plan this conference and to keep the vision strong among the pastors there in Liberia, however we also have a plan to the future to turn this Internet project into a sustainable Liberian owned business that will provide connectivity to the churches and to the people, and also employ several Liberians with good paying jobs.

Through DELTA Force we are working on several opportunities to spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ with a plan to also develop sustainable business and community projects. To date we have placed a new van at the WACSN compound that is used to securely transport guests around the city, we have placed a new generator at the compound so that we can have reliable electricity, we have shipped a 40 foot shipping container full of food and other supplies, and are planning another container now with medical equipment and supplies to equip WACSN's new clinic. Plans on the radar are to provide for a fishing boat, water filtration, solar and wind energy, and many other exciting projects.

God is blessing our activities, for instance, after we purchased the Van, the office of the President of Liberia contacted WACSN and is now renting the van and providing a nice source of revenue. Our purchase of the Van gave us some good relationships within the Lebanese business community in Monrovia, this greatly helped in the purchase of the generator.

DELTA Force Missions is the path through which we provide our support to WACSN in Liberia. To date Fresh Start Fellowship (a small church in Fairview, OK), has provided a great deal of the giving needed to get these projects where they are today, however they are now needing to reach out and gain the support others who have a similar vision to help the least of these in our world.

Here is what you can do to help:

• Donate funds to DELTA Force, 100% of the money will go to support the activities in Monrovia. Many things in Liberia are expensive, Internet for example costs MUCH more than it does here, for you techies, a 128/128k dedicated connection runs $1400.00 a month. This kind of stuff is vital to build a foundation for sustainability, and the world does not want us to succeed, the world wants to continue to oppress the Liberian people, this is truly a battle.
• Contact us to have us come talk to your church or organization about our vision for Liberia. Let us cast a vision to your friends and family to truly help the least of these as Jesus commands us to. I know that Kris, Bryan and myself will readily make ourselves available to come talk to your group.
• Raise money to help pay for people's travel to Liberia, or volunteer and raise money to go yourself (but be ready to work!)
• PRAY: Pray that our vision will be clearly from God. Pray that God will move in the hearts of the people and that pastors in Liberia, pray that personalities and minor theological issues won't impede the forward progress of the Gospel, pray that communities will be built up strong in Christ. Specifially right now we need prayer that our shipping container full of food will be released from customs without us having to pay ridiculous import taxes etc. Also that the internet service will be installed quickly and with no show stopping technical challenges (but with a few technical challenges just to keep it fun for me!)
• Adopt a child through WACSN, You can literally save a life, and change your own life. Liberia has been destroyed by years of war, many families cannot afford to feed or care for their own children, when you adopt from Liberia, many times you adopt not only a child, many times you adopt a family, and as is the case with many of my friends who have adopted, they adopted a whole nation. Get in contact with me an I can forward you to many families who's homes have been blessed by adopting from Liberia.

If you are interested in this vision, even if you have the least bit of interest, please contact me. Heck, even if you HATE the vision and think it's a stupid idea, contact me and at least give me a chance to talk you into it. We are working hard now to build a network of individuals interested in supporting and serving Liberia. PLEASE forward this email along to anyone you might think is interested in helping. We are on the precipice of a powerful move of God in Liberia that will impact thier nation in a very good way, I want to have a front row seat to that.

Compassion International

Another and probably better use of your money is a group called Compassion International. They have been around for a long time helping children get food clothing and education. Compassion is a very established organization with a very good track record for helping people, over 80% of what you give goes directly to the child you sponsor, and you get to develop a relationship with the child you sponsor through letters and other correspondence.

I have a friend who was able to go to Ethiopia and meet the child he and his wife were sponsoring, and they also got to meet some of the people involved with Compassion International an he was blown away by how this organization is able to meet the not only the physical, but also the spiritual needs over over 750,000 kids world-wide. For $32 a month they are able to provide medicine, clean water, nutritious food, and hope to people who desparately need it. So cut back on the double decaf mocha lattes and save a kid's life. Most of the developing world live on less than $1.00 per day, so $32 a month is effectively doubling the income of the child you are sponsoring, and through Compassion International they are able to put that money to the most effective use possible to make sure the child is healthy, receives a quality education, and hears the hope of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

This isn't meant to be a substitute for meeting the needs of the people in your own community, but as Christians we are also called to spread the gospel to every nation, and this is a good way that you can do that (until God calls you to pack up and head to Africa or to plant a church in downtown Detroit).

1 John 3:17-18

"But if anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him? Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth."

James 1:27

"Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world."

kiva.org

This is a really cool site that I saw a PBS (the only TV channel we have right now) documentary on. It is called kiva.org and it was founded by a guy who used to be with paypal. Anyway they have contacts with micro lending organizations all over the world and they enable you to directly help to finance a small business in a developing country. So for instance if some guy in Azerbaijan wants to build a stand so he can quit selling his vegetables out of the back of his car, except $500.00 is an enormous amount of money for him, you can help him by loaning him the money through kiva.org. They have a 100% payback rate right now. I think paypal even waives the normal fee they charge on transactions when you use it to loan money via kiva. I really think this is a good way to help people and to also develop some relationships with people who may need to hear the Gospel.

One idea Julie had was to ebay some "junk" we have laying around and use the money to lend to some people needing it on kiva. I think that is a great idea, so my Roomba's going the way of the virgin mary shaped cheeze sandwich so it's value can be better put to use helping someone's small business.

Another cool thing is that you can loan as little as $25.00 to someone and really make a difference. They give you the ability to track the progress of the money being raised on a project and also the payback rate of the project. I think this is an excellent way to help people in a way that respects their dignity, one of the big problems in the developing world is simply access to the capital necessary to get their business rolling, and by rolling I mean simply buying goods to sell, or buying the lumber to build a fruit stand, or buying seed to plant a small field, etc, these are all things that are so inexpensive most of us would not even think twice about it, but they are major obstacles to providing for the families of many people out there trying to eek out a living.